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What and who really transform education?

During the past few years, there has been talks and debates about what would transform education.

ICT, Internet, MOOCs, pedagogy, or social networks? Is MOOC really transforming Higher Education? If yes, then, I would say it started in 2008, when the first cMOOC CCK08 PLANTED THE SEED OF SUCH DISRUPTION AND TRANSFORMATION.

The theory behind MOOCs is a simple one: Wouldn’t it be great if every student had access to the best college professors and college courses? And what if those ideas were accessible 24×7, from anywhere in the world?

MOOC would change education forever, as the author of the post believes.

In many ways, these developments have the potential to invigorate higher education by compelling traditional colleges and universities to become more accessible, committed to graduates’ success and more distinctive and diverse.

At the same time, MOOCs have some potential downsides. They could promote a two-tiered system — one tier consisting of a campus-based education for those who can afford it, and the other consisting of low- and no-cost MOOCs. This stratification could be reinforced if the colleges and universities that offer massive online courses reserve degrees for the graduates of their physical campuses and provide lesser credentials for their MOOC graduates — in effect, creating a “luxury” brand and an “economy” brand.

How would institutions resolve such two-tiered system is still yet to be revealed, as the current vision and mission of most institutions would likely struggle when only elite institutions are admitted to the MOOCs hall of the fame and bandwagon.

To some extent, there are many who have changed the world of education, whilst others are working for free, including the super-professors and their teaching assistants. Interesting post on they-can-hire-one-half-the-professoriate, where professors are competing with each others in order to teach in the MOOCs.

May I say that each of the above contributes to the transformation of Higher Education, but none of these would be possible without US – the educators (professors, the administrators, the technologists), the networkers, the learners etc.

My conclusion is: We all transform Higher Education, whereas all the tools that we are now using are enablers of the transformation.

It is human who would transform the world of education, and that is all of us.

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I would like to relate to Alex Kuskis’ comments provided here where he points to: The unaffordability of the American campus model, based on tuition price increases year after year, with students incurring immense debts, leading to a student loans crisis and financial bubble that will sooner or later burst, just as the housing bubble … Continue reading → […]